


diptych

by sea_sighs



Series: Diptych series [1]
Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Angst, Happy Ending tho, M/M, Yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:21:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24617506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sea_sighs/pseuds/sea_sighs
Summary: It's between Arras and Souchez when Schofield realises that he's in love.
Relationships: Tom Blake & William Schofield, Tom Blake/William Schofield
Series: Diptych series [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1779745
Comments: 13
Kudos: 52





	diptych

**Author's Note:**

> im so dazed in writing this, its 2 am over here. Thank you to Kait who endured my first few writing bits, which has transformed into something else entirely. the tenses are a hot mess so if you do find inconsistencies, please do give me a shout below, I would be grateful and appreciative of it. Finally, I hope you enjoy. if you want to screech about 1917 or Blakefield come find me at starburp at the SecondDevons server or on tumblr.
> 
> all my love, and again I hope you enjoy,

Love is many things to Schofield. 

When he was young, he was taught that love was to be recited. _Sit up straight my boy… now repeat after me, At regina gravi iamdudum saucia cura volnus alit venis, et caeco carpitur igni._

It was Sunday school in a tall room that stank like chalkboard and old. It was a wall of nominatives, genitives, text. Even when he grew older it remained unknown. Not because he couldn’t translate it. It was because it seemed that love itself was a wilderness. 

In love, food becomes secondary. Hunger, a dream. A day seems to stretch for weeks. A minute, an hour. The concept of family and company becomes untenable, distasteful. The distance grows until suddenly the idea of itself becomes a foreign country. To be in love, then, was to commit to a stark alienating loneliness; a wilderness made by the self.

It is as subtle and as comforting as a house on fire. Something as dramatic as that- Scho figures- is something he would have noticed. 

But when it happens, there is no touch, no sound, no moment that says _finally this is what love means._ Love, Schofield realises is existence. Simply existence. It’s as profound as it is terrifying. Profound because it is simple. Terrifying because of its anonymity. There is no point in which Schofield can point out and say _yes, it is here, it is this moment,_ no part in which he could say _there was a before_ and _there was an after_.

The realisation comes simply between Arras and Souchez, between mud and the falling snow.

.

It does not stop him from asking;

_Where does love begin?_

Sometimes in the early dawn, he thinks it might have happened in the months after Thiepval. They were in the reserves when a flare sailed across the dark, Blake's eyes catching light. 

A beat. Silence.

_Trouble?_

_No, don’t think so._

_What was it then?_

Whispering. Someone sprinting, _Splat, splat, splat._ Voices. 

_Must’ve been a mistake_. 

_By who?_

_Private Hughes._

Blake had snorted then, joining in, _course, it was._ He turned to Scho, - _did I ever tell you about that time when he-_

It’s only much later, after they’ve been relieved, that Blake realised he wasn’t speaking to Private White. But by then it’s already too late. He's made Schofield laugh.

.

Other times, when Scho is with Blake, he thinks it might have happened in the town of Courcelette. They had stopped there at the first brush of hail, stood under the eaves of something destroyed for more than an hour. Official order.

The air had smelled like ozone and sog. Hail skittered across the roof, groups of men scattered underneath it. Blake had tilted his chin up, sighed, and then sighed again. His right shoe tapping against the grey. Dull thuds. Waiting, waiting, almost always waiting. 

Boredom.

The action reminded Scho of his cousins.

They were older than him. Willowy and lanky, where Scho was just beginning to grow. Aged seventeen and they were adults already. He was too shy to speak to them at the time, too nervous to introduce himself. They exuded a sort of bravado which he would learn later was feigned. 

Still.

They were impressive. With their inside jokes, and their at turns marvelous, at turns sharp entitlement. _Why should they wait for anything? Why should they wait when the world is by their feet?_ He had thought them to be so old. They were not. The fact rippled across the surface of his thoughts. Then there was clarity. The anger, the everyday anger Scho woke up to and fell asleep with, came to a needle point.

_Scho?_

_I’m-_ his mind had reeled, hands trembling,- _I'm fine. I'm fine._

He had gripped them into fists, red crescents into his palm. Blake looked at it in concern. Scho shook his head and shooed him away.

It was a weight just to exist.

.

In the quiet, Scho thinks it might have happened after Arras and Souchez. In the midst of an artillery bombardment so close to their line that their teeth shook. It had lit up the sky; night, day, night, day; as if eternity was passing them. And a wall of sound, the constant hellish drumfire, so loud you could barely think, barely breathe, had drowned the air. What was worse was after. In those stretches of silence. The scuttling of rats, and the orders, and the howling. Too dark to see injury or blood, only the sound travelling downwind through the trenches.

_Used to think Summer was my favourite season,_

Blake had confessed in one of the quiet stretches. He continued-

_Now I've no blooming idea anymore._

It took a moment for Scho to summon up the energy to reply, still wrung tight with the din

_Why's that?_

A flash of light burned through the air. A starting boom, shouts, fire. Blake pressed close before the sound enveloped them all.

_Don't think I could wait any longer._

The red noise of artillery started up again, slamming into their ears. The sky above them was a roiling heat. Scho understood what Blake meant. He didn’t want to, but he did. Between the minutes, the days, the hours in the trenches. Where time itself was unknowable. Between Thiepval, Brighton and Courcelette. Between Scho’s youth and his cousins, all catapulting themselves headlong into their fates.

And Blake.

Who in a moment later will grip Scho’s forearm when a blast rips through the trenches. Blake with his fingers digging. Blake in the wild scramble that will follow, in that middling twilight, full of dark shapes and groaning. The blast will swallow the men completely. In the morning they will count, and Scho and Blake will have lost people they know. 

But before that, there is running and desperation and the blackness. Unknowable. Impenetrable. Something wells up in Scho, something that he does not know he has. He shouts back at Blake, as they run through the night-

“In the Somme it felt like it would never come. But it will"

And it does. 

.

Love suffused Scho’s very core. Saturating every pore, sense, moment. Refracting time and space in his head. His memories were a constantly moving jigsaw, each piece linked. The only constancy is that it was love, and it existed, and it was for Blake.

Scho realises this between Souchez and Arras, and It happens like this.

The town they come to is desolate, destroyed, _narpoo_. There is no living soul. Save for the two of them. Scho crouches down, inspecting the wood. He turns it over his hands. Mould. No use, wet wood wasn’t good for burning. He tosses it, turns to Blake.

"Let's move on"

There's a corner where the light comes in. An open wound in the house. A snowdrift is piled high underneath it. Blake stands in front of it, his expression is focused. He moves to the far end of the pile, brushing some of it off. Curious now, Scho walks to him. His eyes light on the hard corner of black fabric. Blake pinches it and pulls.

The whole pile shifts. Beneath it- a piano. Blake lets out a soft laugh.

"Ask and you shall receive" Blake states, self-satisfied. He shoots a grin back at Scho.

Scho dryly replies, "I wish I had gloves"

It feels like the wrong thing to say when Blake’s face scrunches up.

“Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

Before Scho can react, Blake’s already pulled his gloves off and grabbed Scho’s hands. The heat is almost burning from having his hands cold for too long. Blake looks distracted, his eyes on the piano. Mindlessly kind, almost blase in all the things he did. Scho watches in a daze as Tom rubs the blood back into them, bringing them up to his mouth and blowing hot air.

"There you go good as new" He beams, before turning to the piano. 

His hands are restless, immediately lifting the cover. There are yellowed keys, but none are missing. Blake smiles. He plays a few tentative notes and a sweet sourness rises in the air. It is out of tune, but only slightly.

"Reckon they'll be able to cart this down the rubble?"

Scho snorts and moves close to Blake.

“No, don't think so.” Then after a beat, “Do you play?”

Blake shakes his head, eyes still on the piano. “Brown did though... think you could find me something to sit on?”

Scho acquiesces, casting his gaze around the place. He eventually finds a small coffee table in a different room, dry enough that they could use later. As he lifts it back Scho hears something. Silence and then notes; a melody. At first, it sounds happy and then sad. It is both by the time it ends.

The moment Scho returns into the room he knows something is wrong. Blake’s back is tensed, his shoulders a tight line. Scho hurries over, cocking the table on his hip. When he rounds the snow and looks to Blake, his expression is unreadable. There is silence. Unknown again.

“Brown taught me that.” Blake says after a while. The grief begins to roll over him in waves. His eyebrows furrow, his eyes darken. His lips turn into a tight frown. 

“If I really think about it, I think I could cry. So I don’t. But it feels like…” He bites down on the words, “it feels like I'm forgetting all of them.”

Something twists in Scho. He sets down the table by him and places a hand on his shoulder.

"You're not."

Blake’s eyes are watering. They stare straight in front of him.

“Blake, you’re not forgetting them.... Blake…” the name is an entreaty, “Blake please look at me”

Blake shakes his head resolutely. Tears begin to roll down his cheeks. Schofield feels himself deflate at the sight, sinking deep into despair until it hits something. At first it’s like a sandbed, the emotion shifting around Scho but underneath it is bedrock. Resolve.

“You idiot.” Scho says lowly.

That gets Blake. His eyes tell Scho that he is insulted, angry, confused all at once. Scho only continues.

“I don’t think you’ll forget them any time soon. Otherwise you wouldn’t be crying all over me.”

A beat. Then-

“Ugh! I’m not even near you, you git!” he punches Scho neatly in the arm. But his expression is brightening, like a rain cloud passing to reveal the sun. After a moment, he wipes his tears hastily, ashamed. But Scho holds his wrists lightly and shakes his head.

“‘S okay. It helps.” Before retracting his hands and turning to the piano himself. In the corner of his eye Blake takes a lungful of frigid air, and exhales deeply. Scho tries to give him some privacy by not looking. Instead, he peers more intently at the piano and then their make-shift chair table. He sits on it experimentally. It holds. A small relief.

He plays a few keys with his index finger, more for something to do rather than any real intention. 

"Can you play me something?" Blake’s voice is quiet and shaky.

Scho finds him hovering near, uncertain. He taps the wood beside him, _please, sit._ Blake does, with no choice but to settle close. The heat by their shoulders and legs are familiar. Welcome. 

"I only know lullabies" Scho admits.

That startles a laugh out of Blake.

"You? Lullabies?"

Scho smiles. He knows the question isn’t meant to be unkind. Maybe that is why he says-

"For my daughters"

As soon as he says it feels like a misstep. He’s revealed too much. He’s going to- Blake’s eyes crinkle, his smile softening.

"Of course. Wish I could play more"

Blake was very good at that. Saying but not saying. But Scho is fearful all of a sudden. He fears that Blake will ask him to be open. Scho cannot. But then Blake is looking at the keys, tapping them with his index fingers, a ghost of a smile on his face. An unsettling feeling blankets Scho, close to a realisation, but not yet. The emotion is passed off as a familiar discomfort; talk of home.

“I could teach you. If we’re still here” _next year, next month, next week._ Scho does not know. He does not know why he is offering more.

Blake looks at him and his lips curve into a smile, cheeks dimpling. Scho takes a careful breath and smiles back.

“You gonna teach me twinkle twinkle little star?”

“No.” Scho says suddenly brave. Playing the piano was tucked away tightly with the thought of his family. It was something that shamed him and angered him at equal parts. But the thought of sharing something beautiful casts waves and wakes in his mind. He turns to look at the piano. A giddiness begins to bubble in his chest. His hands rest on the keys and Blake's eyes follow him. An anticipatory silence hangs. Scho shoots a look at Blake, _no I'll teach you this_. Then he begins to play.

The first few notes go wrong, but Blake remains grinning. Scho is reminded of the warmth in his hands. He refocuses. He ghosts over the first part, out of pace and out a few keys, but then something aligns within him. Like rediscovering an old path hidden under the ivy. Certainty comes to Scho and suddenly his fingers know, making sound and music and sun. The melody dims into a question; it is uncertainty, it is muted hesitance. Like his mother’s footsteps by the door, soft, wondering. Then it becomes clear. The music crests over Scho, over his own emotions, the chords resonate and bellow as he presses harder. Louder and Louder. And then- soft. 

Slow.

Bright.

It sounds like trickling rain. And then the melody dips. And swings, and whirls around them, like young dancers in the night. Full of joy, throwing everything they have into the very act. Blake laughs all of a sudden, surprise perhaps. A smile rises from Scho’s lips, his hands faltering as he glances at Blake.

He falters.

Then he freezes entirely.

Blake’s laughter fades, his eyes still bright as he asks-

"Why'd you stop?" 

That question is many things to Scho. There are many answers. Scho could say 

_it’s snowing_ or _we should go back._

But he balks at the insincerity of it. He could say a truth instead, because _I only played it for my wife._ Because _it is suddenly too much. Too painful_ . Or because he does not want this moment to end, _I want a stay of execution._ Because- _you have caught me off guard at every turn, every place, every moment._ Because- _I thought the war was a wilderness but it was because of you. I do not know who or where or when I am with you._ But most of all, Scho realises, it is this truth, the truth:

_I stopped because I love you. More than words can say._

And if it is the only memory that stays beyond the door, stretching beyond time and place, moving past before and after, if it is the only memory that Scho will have with him, it would be this, forever. It is no monument, but as Scho’s hand begins to move across the keys, or it did, or it will, there is something eternal to it. No beginning. No end.

Just between.

Scho realises, that somewhere, somewhen between Souchez and Arras, he is in love with Tom Blake.

  
  



End file.
